When an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) subscriber receives an incoming phone call while watching TV, the subscriber either has to pause the movie or mute the show to answer the call. By answering the phone call, the subscriber's TV experience is interrupted. The call received by the subscriber may be associated with one of the many types of telephone services subscribed by the subscriber, e.g., a cellular telephone service, a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) telephone service, and/or a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service. Similarly, the subscriber may receive short text messages (SMS) on a mobile phone or instant messages (IM) on a computer while watching TV, where again the subscriber will be interrupted in order to attend to these received messages.